Turn the Summer Into Dust
by therearespirits
Summary: Don Ressler does not get drunk. But by chance if he does, luck is not on his side. It's okay though, it's all part of the process of healing. (set mid-season one)
1. Chapter 1

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Turn the Summer Into Dust

_"Something filled up my heart with nothing, someone told me not to cry. But now that I'm older, my heart's colder, and I can see that it's a lie. Children wake up, hold your mistake up, before they turn the summer into dust." - Arcade Fire_

Chapter One

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><p>Don Ressler never got drunk.<p>

Sure, there were those nights in college with his fraternity buddies where he let loose not knowing better, the situation getting the better of him, but he was just a boy who didn't have a worry of his life back then. Now, he's Special Agent Don Ressler, a man devoted to his work, his mind committed, having only one aim or purpose – to catch the bad guys.

He was a logical man and a sound one at that. The years of working made him guarded and he hated anything that made his mind clouded or lose focus. He hated opening himself to vulnerability and losing his focus that made him the veteran field agent that he was today.

Of course there were nights that he had drinks with his colleagues at work, but Don Ressler made it a point to never drink enough to be drunk. Just two bottles of beer, he knew his limit and he was going to keep by them.

But one day, Red entered his life once again. His fiancée died. His best friend betrayed him and killed himself. He was working with a criminal. He didn't know who his friends or enemies were at this point. His fiancée could have been pregnant and she died. All because of him. Over and over again he would repeat these facts in his head, but the death of Audrey was something he couldn't quite get over.

He grieved silently. He wasn't a man of many tears, but he did grieve. He found it hard to go back to the house they once shared; he found it hard in general to continue his life because he couldn't stop thinking about her. He knew time would make him heal, but that itself made him feel worse because he didn't deserve to feel better. His fiancée whom he loved died because of him, and he shouldn't get to deal and forget about what happened. But it was making him miserable.

He made it a point to be busy with work; he was bad at showing emotion, and he didn't want to. The busier he was, the less he felt. It was better for him to be catching the bastards that did things like terrorize and kill innocent people than to mope around not being able to bring justice for her death. So that was what he did. He put all the energy that he had into his job. Some were worried about him, including one Elizabeth Keen, but he didn't want her sympathy. He was not close with her, in fact, she's the reason why all these troubles entered his life. He didn't want to, but he knew deep inside that she was a good person, but he wasn't going to let it show altogether.

Time was passing by without him realizing it. Keen was still worried about him, wanting him to take some personal time off. He refused because he was okay. He shouldn't have been, but he was. He knew he was.

He's been having several good days on the job. Don, along with Elizabeth and other field agents, were able to bring down another number something on Reddington's list, including other terrorists that were related to the assignment they were handed with.

He was in a better mood compared to most days, and remembered going out for drinks with some of his colleagues. Everyone had a stressful few weeks and wanted a night of relaxation, if they can call it that. From what Don remembered from a year ago (yes, it was that long since the last "night of relaxation"), it was a few hours of drinking and small talk, the self-called funny guys making jokes here and there, and everyone hits home before it gets too late because they're tired and they have work the very next day.

The night was dark and its air cool on his skin. By the time he stepped into the bar, people were already celebrating with a few drinks. He even saw Cooper mingling with a few people.

Don was okay. Really, he was. He made the accepted small talk with people he normally does not get to work with. There wasn't a great number of people that were recruited to work at the black site, but that didn't mean he talked and formed a close relationship with all of them. He only talked to those whose help was needed in an assignment. So, he was making an effort this time, because he was okay. He even laughed at the ridiculous attempts of jokes made by a fellow agent to lighten up the mood.

But one drink here turned to five drinks there and before he could stop to think about his limit, he couldn't even count the total number of drinks that he had. What was worse was that Don wasn't a loud drunk. He would act just like he normally would, except a little nicer. His speech might slur from time to time and he would lighten up a little, get off of his high horse, he remembered a friend telling him a long time ago. But the problem with alcohol and any man - it made him do things without thinking.

So, he didn't know how he managed to get out of the bar or how he managed to find his way back home to his bed. He couldn't remember how many drinks he had and he couldn't remember anything that happened after Cooper, too, tried to loosen up himself and make a pathetic joke – even Don couldn't laugh at that one no matter how drunk he was.

It was a miracle that his eyes even opened in the morning. He was hung-over. He could feel it even though he was half-asleep. He closed his eyes again, but the sun light beaming on his face was making him feel much worse than he felt. He put his arm over his eyes to block it.

And that was when he realized that something was off.

He never had the curtains drawn in his room. He actually never got any sunlight in the morning because of the direction his room was facing.

He awoke from his sleep fully now. His mind was busy trying to get a sense of things. He kept his current position, on his back, arms drawn over his closed eyes and tried to decipher where he was. That's when he realized that it wasn't just the fact that he wasn't at his house that was off, it was the soft pressure on his other arm. Something that did not feel like it was a part of the bed. Something that felt strangely like a human hand. A female hand. A female hand that started to detach from his arm because the person to who the hand belonged to was beginning to stir, slowly awaking.

He silently cursed in his head. This was why he never got drunk.

He did what he thought was the sensible thing to do in this situation. He lowered his arm from his eyes and opened them. He was lying on a bed that was obviously not his. The sun was shining especially bright that morning, allowing him to see literally everything. He didn't recognize any of what he saw.

He slowly turned his head to the right and was faced with a sleeping face of a woman who he also didn't recognize. She seemed to be young, younger than him anyway, and had long, light brown hair that cascaded around her head, messy and tangled from whatever activity they partook in last night. He couldn't remember a thing.

He looked at her face again and was slightly taken back to find that she was now fully awake like him, her eyes meeting his and looking as surprised and confused as he was when he woke up.

She didn't say anything. Instead, she tried to get up. He watched her face redden a little as she got back down because of her lack of clothing. She gathered the covers to cover her body and faced him again. She looked as though she wanted to say or do something, but didn't because she didn't know what to do. She seemed even more dumbfounded that he was not taking any action, but just there next to her on the bed watching her.

Normally, his mind would be functioning correctly to let him know that he should hurry up and leave, but this morning his mind went blank. It was as though both of them did not know how they got to be in this bed. Together. Without any clothes.

He's always been raised to be a gentleman, to respect women, so he did the first thing that came to his mind.

"Hi. I'm Don Ressler."

He introduced himself.

Of course, he felt a bit idiotic after the words came out of his mouth, but the way she was staring at him, eyes wide and lips slightly parted, hands fist-full of the covers she used to cover her, he felt _bad_.

She lowered her eyes after staring at him for a moment.

"I know, I'm Madalene," She let out quietly, forced to share her name with a stranger on her bed. She gathered the covers to get up from the bed. Her face reddened and quickly turned around, realizing the man now had nothing to cover himself with. She let her eyes wander around the room so she wouldn't have to meet his eyes or look at his very naked form.

Don eyed their clothing spread all over the room. He rubbed his temples with his hand; this day was starting off so perfectly.

"Okay, Don," She cringed slightly at how awkward that sounded. "I'm sorry, but I'm late for work..." She let her words hang, trusting him to have the good sense to leave.

That's when his mind started to come to its senses and prompted him to get up and get the hell out of this place. Her place, he assumed. As he put his clothes back on he heard her leave the room. So, she knew who he was. Maybe he met her at the bar and introduced himself to her last night. It didn't matter. All he needed to do was hurry up and get to the Post Office and out of this ridiculing situation.

He left the place without looking back.

He took a good look around the neighborhood as he stepped outside. He knew he was still in DC, he could see the Washington Monument from a distance, but where the hell was he? His location wasn't his greatest problem, though.

"Where's my car?" He grunted to himself as he looked around to find his black vehicle.

Yes, Donald Ressler never got drunk. But by chance if he did, luck was not on his side.

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><p>Disclaimer: I do not own The Blacklist, or any of the characters in it, including Don Ressler.<p>

A/N: A character study of Don Ressler. I plan to draw out all his angst and character as the story progresses.


	2. Chapter 2

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Turn the Summer Into Dust

"_The observation I am doing can easily be understood as cynical demeanor, but one of us misread. And what do you know, it happened again." - Kings of Convenience_

Chapter Two

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><p>"You're late."<p>

Don looked up to find Meera Malik standing by his office door, the ends of her lips curved upward in a hint of a smile.

"Traffic," He replied in his usual matter-of-fact tone, not betraying the slight uncertainty he felt inside. He and Meera did not make small talk. In fact, they didn't make conversation unless they were working together on a case, questioning about this or commenting about that, so it was a surprise to him that she was still standing there expecting him to make chit-chat with her.

"I see," She nodded, still with that smile that sat on her lip. "I saw you leave the bar with someone last night. A certain someone that happens to be a girl."

Obviously, this was Meera's way of trying to make nice and on any normal day he would consider returning it. But today was a bad day. Don didn't know why (maybe it was the fact that he was late to work because he couldn't find his car at a stranger's house because he supposedly left the bar last night with that said stranger to end up sleeping with her- the first woman other than Audrey in years), but he wasn't in the best of moods.

He could have went along with her for the sake of their relationship, but he felt it extraneous to tell her anything that happened last night in regards to that girl and also pointless, seeing as how he didn't remember anything to say something. If she was a friend, he would have maybe mentioned the fact that he literally had to retrace his steps to find his missing car, still parked nice and evenly behind the bar. Maybe.

"Did you need something?"

Leave it up to Don Ressler to get to the point.

She looked a little thrown off, disappointed maybe, by his blatant desire to end the conversation.

"Come on, Red's got for us a new case. Something about an abduction," She motioned with her head that he should follow after her, and he did. "We'll talk about what happened yesterday later." Leave it up to Meera Malik to be unfazed by Don.

The case, as explained by Keen who already was at base with Cooper, was one dealing with men from Serbia. An extraction team of sorts also known as the Pavlovich brothers.

"You're talking about the team from the bridge that grabbed the general's daughter," Don realized. "We lost six of our men that day."

It was hard for him to forget about that day - that first case working with Keen and her partner-in-crime Red, and the number of lives that no longer was.

The brothers were coming after a Chinese scientist, Xiaoping Li, a high value target because of her knowledge of a chemical weapons project, and Don firmly wanted to put these guys behind bars without any complications in the way. He was sure the others agreed with him.

"We have to assume that the Pavlovich brothers already know the route of the team on stand-by to escort her, so let's change the route and bring her here," Cooper commanded, his eyes on each of his agents before they headed off, making sure they knew he meant business.

"We're on it," Elizabeth replied as she headed to walk out with Don and Meera in hand. She furrowed her brows as she made herself realize that the elevators weren't on their floor as it usually was. In fact, she's never had to wait for the elevators before ever since she started working at the Post Office; it was just always on their floor.

"What's wrong?" Don asked, stepping forward to stand next to Elizabeth, eager to get out there before the brothers got to the scientist. He gave her a quizzical look when she pointed to the elevator. "Is it broken?"

"Oh, no, just waiting for it to come up."

So the three of them stood there like that, waiting, which was a little new for them.

When the elevator finally came up and the door slid open, they were surprised to find someone actually in it. Waiting for the elevator was one thing, but finding someone other than them riding it was another.

It was a woman, her face partly hidden by her looking down to read a file she was holding, completely unaware that the elevator had stopped to let her off to her designated floor.

Meera observed with amusement as the woman, still focused on whatever she was reading, absentmindedly walked out of the elevator into their direction. She came to a halt when she realized something was blocking her way and looked up, her eyes surprised to find the three of them lined up together staring at her.

Seeing her face, Meera guessed her to be in her late twenties, maybe (she was bad at telling someone's age), with brown hair and soft eyes - one of those English rose types that Meera so used to envy during her years in school.

The woman didn't do anything but stare back at them in all the awkwardness, first at Meera, then Elizabeth. She tilted her head slightly to look at Don, her eyes meeting his. Her stare faltered a little as he held his unreadable gaze, before letting her eyes drift away from his when she heard Meera speak.

"Well, come on, let's let her pass, guys," Meera smiled as she moved a little to make room for the woman to get through.

"Right, I'm sorry," Elizabeth shook her head slightly at her stupidity as she also moved out of the way.

The woman walked past them with a quiet thank you. She chose to avert his gaze.

Meera looked back while getting on the elevator to see the English rose walk over to Cooper, and before the doors slid shut, all three of them caught a glimpse of her handing the file in her hands to him and her laughing at something Cooper said.

"Wow, that was weird," Elizabeth commented as the elevator door closed after they got in.

"It's not everyday that we get to meet someone in an elevator," Meera joked, staring at Don out of the corner of her eyes. The man's face betrayed no emotions at all. Darn. "First time is always the hardest. Next time we meet her, we might even manage a hello."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes at Meera. "I don't think I've ever seen her before."

"Madalene Bessett. She's an analyst; likes to work in the back."

Don let the conversation drown out as soon as he heard her name. This felt like the longest time he ever spent in or around an elevator, and it probably was. He let his eyes close for a second. He felt an oncoming headache that he knew wouldn't leave any time soon.


End file.
